Even if Google can settle it faces numerous more antitrust probes on other topics in the EU and U.S.

On Monday, Jonathan Todd, spokesman for the European Commission (EC) -- the European Union's (EU) market regulatory watchdog -- revealed that Google Inc. (GOOG) had reached out to the EC and promised to make serious changes to address allegations made by EU antitrust regulators.

Our proposal to the European Commission addresses their four areas of concern. We continue to work with the Commission to settle this case.

For Google -- who makes the world's most use mobile operating system, search, and internet advertising platforms -- it's been a bewildering ride with European antitrust regulators. The company has been probed and threatened by the EU for over three years now.

The company can largely thank Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) for its EU antitrust woes. Microsoft has led two key coalitions -- The FairSearch Coalition, whose members also include Expedia Inc. (EXPE) and TripAdvisor Inc. (TRIP), and ICOMP, whose members also include Foundem, Hot-map, Streetmap, and NexTag -- both of which filed complaints about Google, claiming that Google boosts the ranks of its own services when consumers use its search engine.

While this might sound like smart business, Microsoft alleges it's illegal, and it could be right due to Google's dominant position in the search market and the way EU antitrust laws are structured.

Also, Google is accused of "scraping" or gathering results from its competitors’ services using automated scripts to improve the quality of its own results. Google does not deny doing some scraping; pointing out that Microsoft does the same. However, given that scraping is a gray area in current antitrust laws, it is possible that Google could be viewed as committing antitrust abuses when it scrapes smaller competitors.

Google has also been accused of abusive scraping [Image Source: Google Images/unknown]

Part of the problem is that in the EU Google has traditionally held a much larger piece of the market. In the EU Google has held as much as 86 percent of the search market; currently it has around an 80 percent market share, according to Reuters. This is much higher than in the U.S., where its market share is currently around 67 percent, according to market research firm Comscore.

II. More Antitrust Woes Loom for Google

But whether or not Google has abused its dominant position to further its own services like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Flights, and Google Shopping, it's hard not to feel a bit of sympathy for the chaotic way in which antitrust punishments for Google have been handled in the EU.

Privacy is another major issue Google is being grilled on. [Image Source: Inquistr]

In short, even if Google manages to win over the EU with its settlement proposal and escape fines, it still faces at least two more major topics of antitrust investigation in the EU, U.S., and elsewhere.

"Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment -- same piece of hardware -- paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that's a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be." -- Steve Ballmer